


Round And Completed In Herself

by honeymink



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-19 13:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18136295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeymink/pseuds/honeymink
Summary: In the aftermath of Lagos, Wanda learns to trust herself again.





	Round And Completed In Herself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semperfiona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperfiona/gifts).



“I’m going to the store,” Wanda says and gives a distorted smile, because the conversation has become painful and this is not paprika at all. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

That’s when he brings up the takeaway. Instant suspicion washes over her.

“Vision, are you not letting me leave?”

He explains. She doesn’t like his explanation.

Once Vision is gone, the ring of her thoughts goes around her wrist in a narrow circle. Captain America may have shouldered responsibility, so perhaps it’s unfair but it’s his voice that whispers to her, “You think you’re just like us. What are your qualifications?”

No star on her suit will turn her into Steve Rogers, the all-American hero. The world and worse her friends have decided not to trust her. Eventually, she will find a solution but for now, Wanda wants nothing more than to forget. 

Lost in thought, her hands move with precision. At the base of all the strangeness around her lies something warm. There’s a red spark from the tips of her fingers. Wanda feels it against her temples. Now she’s weaving her web. And truly it is something between shelter and reverie. 

***

“You are beautiful, dragă,” her mother’s voice is clear and strong as she pins a chain of gold coins into Wanda's hair like a crown. “Give me a twirl in your new dress.”

The green silk shimmers in the mirror’s reflection and her mother claps in delight. Next year mortar shells made by Stark Industries will collapse their apartment building and everything will change. But now, Wanda is nine years old and impatient.

“Ready to go to the Purim spiel, Queen Vashti?” her mother teases, making Wanda sulk. 

“I wanted to be Esther.”

Her mother smiles and bows, “Esther it is then.”

*

From afar she can already see the stage. Wanda runs after Pietro, along Sokovia’s main road whose puddles and potholes have been hastily patched with gravel and tree bark. 

“Be strong, sister!” Pietro laughs. “It won’t be long before you have the power you need to keep up.”

It’s unfair, his legs are longer, yet Wanda runs harder. They reach the crowd. The play has begun. 

“Cursed be Haman!” Pietro yells wildly with the rest of the crowd blotting out the name of the villain, while Wanda catches her breath. "May the name of the wicked rot!"

Finally, she looks up. The actors look splendid in their garments, the scenes unfolding are familiar and yet… this is when she realizes she has lost Pietro and the crowd, stamping, booing and hissing again at the mention of Haman, seems to be closing in on her. Blind panic races down her nerves and a cry of horror rings in her ears, which she realizes must have come from her own mouth. Nobody pays attention. 

Wanda closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and expels fluttering fright. Just a few steps back and she feels freer. The crowd is not faceless anymore but they are her neighbours and friends. And Wanda senses a swell of relief for she is no lost child. Taking the gragger her father gave her out of her dress pocket, she joins in the noise of the festivities.

***

When Wanda wakens, a few red sparks lingering on her fingertips, it’s with the sense of family that has always been at the core of her power. She feels a fierce purity of control flowing through her as she remembers Pietro. These days in exile when the hours stoop and climb out of the cellar into a room that she cannot escape must end. Tony and Vision think they mean well but it’s just another prison and she cannot abide that. It’s not that she trusts Steve more, but she knows she trusts herself. So Wanda takes her chance to leave.

“Guess, I should have knocked,” Hawkeye says, catching the knife she hurls at him.

 

**~Fin~**


End file.
